Great thanks to John Somers

Great
thanks to John Somers, who has just completed a superb four-year
term as First Secretary for Scottish Affairs at the UK Embassy in
Beijing. He supported us magnificently.

I am delighted to let you know that John has been appointed
Principal Private Secretary to the First Minister. Huge
congratulations to John, who is starting work today!

John's successor in Beijing is Martin McDermott. Martin is
already hard at work on his brief and we wish him a successful and
happy tenure.

Hannah Graham, who served so well in the Asia Pacific Team at the
Scottish Government and was so often at SCEN events, has moved
to a new posting. We wish her well and thank her warmly.
Katie Miller will now work in Geoff Pope's Asia Pacific team:
she will be coming with Geoff to the Asia Connection meeting in
Edinburgh on the afternoon of Thursday 9 February. Just email me if
you would like to come. We look forward to working with Katie.